gradireland Graduate Careers Fair :(

vinnyirl

Bit of a disappointment for engineering. I was expecting this to be jobs in Ireland, guess I was expecting too much. Most of the positions were abroad (Spain, France, Netherlands and one from Australia).

Of the positions available I am unsure if they actually exist, I don't know if everyone knows this but a while ago PayPal put up advertisements stating they had something like 200 jobs to fill and it turned out they had nothing, it was just a PR stunt. I talked to a rep from Intel and from what they said I got the impression they will not be hiring for quite a while

Some of the companies are now looking at your CAO points as well :eek: to be honest I have no idea how many points I got, also have no idea where my results are either. I know it is just another filter employers are using to stem the floods of CV's they receive but still very annoying.

Only real options I seen were SAP and InterTradeIreland. SAP seem to look at the person rather than the degree, they try to fit a person into their organisation rather then looking for 600 CAO points and a first class degree handed down by the overlord of all things education. Obviously you will need to know your stuff but they seem to look at more of a broad spectrum.

InterTradeIreland set you up with start-up companies, I’m sure the pay would be fairly bad to non-existent but it’s defiantly something I would look for as it looks like a path that could lead to something great. None of the big company’s started off big after all.

Best opportunities seemed to be coming from Lidl, Aldi and Musgrave(SuperValu) all of which don't really seem to care what degree you have as long as you have one. They provide all the training and have decent to excellent pay rates. They guy from Aldi I was talking to was a civil engineer and now an area manager, suppose we all need to adapt.

Seen a few ITB'ers there what did you guys think of it? Did you find anything good?

So the prospects of getting a good job in Ireland isn't good

Xios

Should've done business, you make your own job that way....

Sure there's no reason you can't anyway.

Block G Raptor

Mate you've got SAP wrong dude. from personal experience. they tried to head hunt me from siemens years ago. I went to the interview and it was an american guy full of bull**** jargon and he didnt make eye contact when we shook hands (a Big no no in my book) they offered me slightly more than I was on but I turned it down as I just got really bad vibes from them. cant put a finger on it but it was the weirdest interview ever it was like they were trying to sell the job to me. they kept mentioning California too like reading between the lines it was like they wanted me to move over there but they weren't saying it up front

kenon

I wouldn't use a grad fair as a guide to the employment situation in Ireland.

There is plenty of work for good engineers in Ireland.

vinnyirl

Xios wrote: »

Should've done business, you make your own job that way....

Sure there's no reason you can't anyway.

I did business with engineering as my honours degree I know how to make my own business, hard part is making one that I can sustain with no money. Or getting it to investor level with no money.

@Block G Raptor I really didn't get that impression from them, but thanks for the heads up.

@Kenon I am sure there are jobs out there, but they are dam hard to find. Any tips?

kenon

vinnyirl wrote: »

@Kenon I am sure there are jobs out there, but they are dam hard to find. Any tips?

Emmh, be patient. Make sure your CV is perfect. Final year projects are important to employers if you have no experience, so dedicate a paragraph in your CV to your project.

Then get your CV out there. Spend 15 to 30mins every day applying for everything! Regardless of how much experience they are looking for, apply for it. Make sure your profile on Monster, Irishjobs, Recruitireland etc is up to date. Set up a LinkedIn profile and get that updated. LinkedIn is very popular in the states and people can get headhunted off it. Its getting popular in Ireland too.

The same companies are at the career fairs every year. They are normally massive companies that are difficult to get into as they have massive amounts of people applying for them so they have ridiculous entry requirements. The whole looking for your leaving cert results is a joke. I'd never apply for a job that looked for leaving cert results (mainly because I did a crap leaving cert!)

You should also find a list of engineering companies and try a few speculative applications, meaning you give them your CV even though they aren't advertising positions.

I was finishing my masters over the summer and would spend time every day applying for jobs, managed to line up some interviews and then lined up work for when I finished in a small (there's 23 of us) electronics company.

There was 5 of us that graduated from ITB last year, 3 of us did a masters and 2 others found work fairly quickly.

Good luck!

dueyfinster

I went to GradIreland last year. It's useful to see what job types are out there etc.

The company I am working for now (Ericsson) were there I think, but I never visited their stand. What I found most helpful is the guide which is a big list of graduate employers in Ireland.

Go through that list and apply for everything, the hiring process is useful to go through a few times (telephone interview etc) even if you don't end up taking the job offered.

(also free tat, yay )